{"id":202035,"date":"2025-08-13T10:21:35","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T10:21:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.anglepoise.com\/eu\/?p=202035"},"modified":"2025-08-13T10:45:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T10:45:15","slug":"the-age-of-enoughness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anglepoise.com\/eu\/journal\/the-age-of-enoughness\/","title":{"rendered":"The age of enoughness"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Canada Goose jacket for a nursery run. A Range Rover Vogue for the food shop. A nanotech wrist-worn ECG monitor to tell the time. A smartphone with more processing power than a NASA shuttle.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The \u20ac160 Gore-Tex quickLACE\u2122 Mud Contagrip\u00ae EnergyCell\u2122+ (seriously) <\/span>hiking trainers<\/span><\/a> that <\/span>celebrity influencers have declared<\/span><\/a> essential daywear.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSmart\u201d capability has besieged our fridges and radiators, adding hundreds or thousands to the price tag.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As technology\u2019s \u201cuses\u201d become more banal than ever thought possible, simple tools and utensils that \u201cdon\u2019t do anything else\u201d start to feel old fashioned.<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a phrase for all this: \u201cperformative utility\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In other words, our daily products have become overpowered. \ud83c\udf0b<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When the product becomes the task<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I may be something of an angry dad stereotype, in that I just want things to work.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to be caught out on a 3-hour train journey when my bluetooth headphones die or fail to connect. We never had these problems in the \u201890s. What was wrong with wires?! They got tangled sometimes but it was better than sitting in miserable silence.<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want an instruction manual for my toothbrush. And I definitely don\u2019t want to pay <\/span>\u00a3800 for it<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And paying for 5 different streaming services and still getting shown ads is pushing me to the brink of a brand new DVD collection.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Everything we\u2019re being sold has 100x more capability than we actually need.<\/span><\/p>\n

Is the era of \u201cenough\u201d gone forever?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Doing one thing well<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Fairphone. Community lawnmowers. The Patagonia fleece that lasts 20 years.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDeownership\u201d is a nice way around this – from cars to pasta machines, creating an economy where everyone can share, and no one can splash out on silly preferences.<\/span><\/p>\n

If we must continually march technology onwards, perhaps we could combine two useful functions – instead of adding surplus ones.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Teasmade was a belter of an invention. It took a water heating element and an analog clock and gave us the peak of humanity. Fresh, hot tea before your feet hit the floor. It was as far as robotics ever needed to go.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What about the humble bidet? Take the seat of a toilet and the tap of the sink. A revolution.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll also accept watches that become step trackers and heart rate monitors. Those things save lives. And I\u2019ll take a <\/span>\u00a3400 Garmin Forerunner<\/span><\/a> that gives me relaxation reminders over a <\/span>\u00a314k Panerai<\/span><\/a> that\u2019s submersible to 500 meters. For the simple reason I\u2019m not a deep sea diver.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve had an eyewatering garage bill \u201cbecause of the electrics\u201d, you\u2019ll be on the side of modularity. Parts you can see, order, and swap out.<\/span><\/p>\n

An Anglepoise (for a convenient example) has 14 main parts. It\u2019s made of springs and joints and bolts. Anyone can <\/span>purchase<\/span><\/a> and replace them at a low cost. Unlike anything listed in the opening paragraph of this article.<\/span><\/p>\n

You get this when things are handmade, not factory-robot-made. So looking for \u2018handmade\u2019 in product descriptions is usually a good start.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The most useful thing in your life (that\u2019s not your phone)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

You can\u2019t say laptop either. Hard to think, isn\u2019t it?<\/span><\/p>\n

For me it\u2019s perhaps a mug, for coffee. Shoes come in pretty handy. You might say a pen knife or a newspaper.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If you work with your hands or in the garden, you\u2019ll probably say your tools – now that\u2019s a good one. A real thing with familiar weight, made of wood and steel. That\u2019s a proper handheld device.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The problem is, if everything\u2019s in one place, so are we.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Most of our daily tasks are on our phones, so that\u2019s where we live. If we can buy everything on Amazon, we\u2019ve lost the butchers and the bakers and all the beautiful, natural, communal benefits that come with them.<\/span><\/p>\n

I know there\u2019s pressure to keep up with the Joneses.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But maybe restraint is an even better \u201cflex\u201d.\u00a0<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Canada Goose jacket for a nursery run. A Range Rover Vogue for the food shop. A nanotech wrist-worn ECG monitor to tell the time. A smartphone with more processing power than a NASA shuttle. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":202078,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":true,"content-type":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"7457,6140,4986,6135,6129,6131","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-202035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe age of enoughness<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A Canada Goose jacket for a nursery run. 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